Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for managing an apparatus connected to a network.
Description of the Related Art
There are typical management apparatuses that manage image processing apparatuses and various terminals connectable to a network as management-target apparatuses via the network. The management apparatus may manage the image processing apparatuses and various terminals based on physical addresses (media access control (MAC) addresses) of these management-target apparatuses as identifiers. The management apparatus that manages a MAC address can acquire the MAC address based on a logical address (internet protocol (IP) address) used for communicating with a management-target apparatus.
The management apparatus acquires the MAC address by using an element (i.e., ipAdEntIfIndex) of an ipAddrTable defined by the management information called a management information base (MIB) of a simple network management protocol (SNMP). In this manner, the management apparatus can specify an index value of a network interface corresponding to a communicating IP address for an internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) and acquire the MAC address.
Some management-target apparatuses have a plurality of network interfaces. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-81433 discusses a technique for enabling a multifunction peripheral (MFP) having a plurality of network interfaces to respond to a request, in which an ifType and an index value are specified, from an external apparatus with the MIB information corresponding to any of the network interfaces. In particular, according to the technique described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-81433, in a case where the MFP receives a request in which a specific value (i.e., “1”) is specified as an index value, the MFP responds to the request with the MIB information about the network interface used for the request as the information corresponding to the specific value.
In addition, with respect to each of the IP addresses of the IPv4 and an internet protocol version 6 (IPv6), one element (i.e., ipAddressIfIndex) of the ipAddressTable for managing the index values of the network interfaces is defined by the Request for Comments (RFC) 4293.
Some existing management-target apparatuses in the network may each include a plurality of network interfaces in order to support wired and wireless communications. In a case where the management apparatus uses the MAC address as the information for specifying the management-target apparatus, the management apparatus has to acquire the MAC address by specifying the network interface which the management-target apparatus uses for the communication.
Here, the MFP serving as the management-target apparatus discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-81433 responds to the request in which the specific value (i.e., “1”) is specified from the management apparatus with the MIB information about the network interface used for the request regardless of the specific value. However, a typical management-target apparatus simply responds thereto with the MIB information corresponding to the index value specified by the management apparatus. Therefore, the management apparatus needs to previously specify network interfaces used by the respective management-target apparatuses for performing communication to acquire the MAC addresses of the network interfaces for management of various types of general-purpose management-target apparatuses.
The management-target apparatus executes communication through an optional address type of any of the IPv4 and the IPv6. In addition, there are the management-target apparatuses that support and do not support the above-described MIB including the ipAddressIfIndex in an existing network.